Leading Arab nationalist Habash dies at 81

JORDAN:George Habash, one of the most influential Arab figures of the 20th century, died in Jordan on Saturday, aged 81.

Born into a middle-class Christian family in British-mandated Palestine, Dr Habash and his family became refugees in 1948 when Israel's army cleared Lydda of its Palestinian inhabitants.

He returned to his studies at the American University of Beirut, graduating in 1951. In 1952 he, Hani al-Hindi, a Syrian, and Ahmad al-Khatib, a Kuwaiti, founded the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), the sole secular pan-Arab party to attract adherents from the Atlantic to the Gulf. The ANM embodied the Arab dream of reuniting Arab countries divided by Britain and France after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The ANM made the struggle against Israel the Arab cause and campaigned for equitable Arab societies.

Its creation coincided with the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy by Gamal Abdel Nasser who adopted the ANM as the vehicle to promote Arab unity.

Arab nationalist officers attempted a coup in Jordan in 1957 and ousted the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and the Libyan king in 1969. They led liberation struggles in Algeria and Yemen. They forged brief unions between Egypt and Syria, Yemen and Jordan. Arab nationalists still rule Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Libya.

The 1967 Arab defeat by Israel dealt a severe blow to the Arab cause and to Nasser's vision of unity. Habash established the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which made its name in August 1969 when Leila Khaled hijacked a civilian airliner to publicise the Palestinian cause. In 1970 the PFLP seized four airliners and flew them to an airfield in Jordan where they were blown up after passengers had been freed.

This operation precipitated a Jordanian military campaign to crush Palestinian guerrilla factions which had challenged the king. The PFLP and the other armed factions took refuge in Lebanon from which they were expelled by Israel in 1982.

In 1976 the PFLP and German revolutionary cells operatives commandeered an Air France plane carrying passengers from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens, diverted the aircraft to Benghazi, Libya, and Entebbe in Uganda where the four hijackers were bolstered by pro-Palestinian Ugandan elements. They demanded the release of Palestinians held in Israel as well as detainees in Kenya, France, Switzerland and West Germany. All hostages except the Israelis were freed, prompting Israel to mount a commando raid. The hijackers and three of the 103 hostages died. Dr Habash expelled from the PFLP the mastermind of its hijackings, Wadie Haddad, who had planned the Entebbe operation without PFLP sanction.

Although a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation dominated by Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, the PFLP opposed the 1993 Oslo Accord reached by Arafat with Israel and joined with the Muslim resistance movement, Hamas, and other dissident groups to reject the 1993 Oslo Accord and the peace process. Habash, a secular Marxist, argued: "Every Palestinian has the right to fight for his home, his land, his family, his dignity - these are his rights."